Chapter IV

§ 52. Organic Division of Scientific Study

Before we can find a provisional answer, in the closing chapter of this division, to the question, whether Theology is or is not a necessary and an integral part of the organism of science, this organism itself must be somewhat closely examined. Only when the anatomy of this organism is known, can it be seen of what parts it consists, and whether among these parts a science in the spirit of what we call Theology occupies a place of its own. Of course, in the framing of this conclusion we must start out with a definition of Theology, which cannot be explained until the following division; but for the sake of clearness in the process of the argument, this hypothetical demonstration is here indispensable.

As far as the organism of science itself is concerned, we have purposely chosen as the title of this section the expression: The organic division of scientific study. If the organic division of science itself is viewed, apart from its relation to practice, nothing is obtained but an abstraction, which lies entirely outside of history and reality; and the question whether Theology is a science in this scientific organism can never be answered. For Theology is an historic-concrete complex, which, if brought over into the retort of abstractions, would at once slip through our fingers and volatilize.

As regards the organic character of science, three data must be taken into account: (1) the organic relation among the several parts of the object of science; (2) the organic relation among the different capacities of the subject and the data which lead to the knowledge of the object; and (3) the organic relation which in consequence of (1) and (2) must appear in the result of the scientific task. The object exists organically; the subject itself exists organically and stands organically related to the object; and consequently this organic character must be found again, as soon as the knowledge of the object has been attained by the subject with sufficient completeness and accuracy. The unity of these three reveals itself historically in the scientific task, which did not begin by making these distinctions clear for itself, but had its rise in the instinctive faith in this mutual relationship. The stimulus to undertake this scientific study is not given by an Academy of Sciences, but by our innate inclination to investigate. As a child breaks his toys and cuts them into pieces, in order to find out what they are and how they are constructed; or, as outside of his playhour he overwhelms you with questions; thus is man prompted by a natural impulse to investigate the cosmos. And, though with adults also this desire after knowledge may consist too largely of a playful inquiry, the needs of life add a nobler seriousness to this playful investigation and by it rule and continuity are imparted to the scientific task. If the practical need of physicians, lawyers, ministers of the Word, Academic professors, etc., did not continually press its claims, the very existence of universities would at once be jeopardized. If these were abolished, and with them the avenues to success were closed against those who desire to devote their lives to scientific pursuits, a small group only of competent persons would be able to allow itself the luxury of this pursuit. And if the number of scientists should thus be reduced, the study of science would likewise suffer from the gradual disappearance of the whole apparatus which is now at its service in libraries, laboratories, observatories, etc. The vitae non scolae is true also in the sense that only life gives the school its susceptibility to life.

The ideal representation that science would still be able to flourish when practised merely for its own sake, rests upon self-deception. This is best observed in the case of those special sciences whose study is not immediately born from the practical need of life, and whose development in consequence has been so greatly retarded. If there were no logic in this practical need of life, and if it were not connected with the organic motive of science itself, this dependence of the school upon life would be most fatal, and would obstruct the smooth progress of scientific investigation. This, however, is not so. The practical need of life is born from the relation in which the subject stands to the object, and from the necessary way in which the subject (humanity) develops itself organically from itself. It must be conceded that the claims which this practical need causes to be felt, are not always considered in the accurate order of succession, and that only after several fits and starts do they assume a more normal character; but the result also shows that science has made all these fluctuations with them, and only when the practical need of life has begun to express itself in clearer language, and, consequently, with clearer self-consciousness, has it assumed a more normal character. This would certainly have proved a difficulty, if the slow ripening of this clear insight into the claims of practical need were bound to any other law than that which governs the development of science itself; but it has created no disturbance, since both the development of these practical needs and the development of science have been governed by the selfsame power, i.e. by the actual mode of existence and organic relation of object and subject. Every encyclopedical division of the sciences, which aims to be something more than a specimen of mental gymnastics, will therefore in the main always proceed from the practical division given historically in the academical faculties. Not as though this division were simply to be copied; for this division, which has already been modified so often, is always susceptible of further modification; but these future modifications also will not abstractly regulate themselves according to the demands of your scheme, but will be permanently governed by the demands of practical need; and only when your schematic insight has modilied the form in which the practical need of life asserts itself, will this insight, through the medium of practical life, be able to influence effectually the process of discriminating the faculties.

But while criticism of the division of scientific study, as it is controlled by that of the faculties, is in every way lawful and obligatory, Encyclopedic science is nevertheless bound to set out from this historic division. It is not to dissect an imaginary organism of science, but it must take as its starting-point the body of science as it actually and historically presents itself; it must trace the thought which has determined the course of this study; and, reinforced with this leading thought, it must critically examine that which actually is. Encyclopedia is no speculative, but a positive, science; it finds the object of its investigation in the actually given development of science. As long as this object had not sufficiently developed, the very thought of Encyclopedic science could not suggest itself. Its study only begins when the study of the sciences has acquired some form of permanency. Since historically Theology has called into life a faculty of its own and has presented itself in this faculty as a complex of studies; and since it is our exclusive aim to answer the question whether Theology takes a place of its own in the organism of the sciences; it would be futile to sketch the organism of science in the abstract. For in the case both of ourselves and of our opponents this sketch would of necessity be controlled by the sympathy or antipathy which each fosters for Theology. Hence that we may have ground beneath our feet, we should not lose ourselves in speculative abstractions, but must start out from the historic course which, under the influence of the practical needs of life, has been pursued by the study of the sciences.

Practically, now, we see that the theological faculty was the first to attain a more fixed form. Alongside of it, and following immediately in its wake, is the juridical faculty. Next to these two is the slow growth of the medical, as a third independent faculty. The so-called philosophical faculty finds its precursors in the Artistic¹; but it is a slow process by which these surmount the purely propaedeutic character which their study bore at first.

ⁱ Artiste was the name of the teachers of classic languages.

The facultas litteraria, either in or out of connection with the faculty of natural philosophy, only gradually takes its place by the side of the above-named three. Clergymen, lawyers and physicians were everywhere needed, while a man of letters and a natural philosopher could find a place only in a few schools. To every one hundred young men, who studied in the first three faculties, there were scarcely five who found their career in the study of literature or natural philosophy. And for this reason the first three faculties were for a long time the principal faculties, and the study of the Artistae and Physicists were mere auxiliaries to them. Propaedeutics was the all-important interest, and not the independent study of Letters or of Natural Philosophy. From this it must also be explained, that at so many universities the study of Letters and of Natural Philosophy has always been combined in the same faculty. In Holland the untenability of this union has long since been recognized, and the Literary and Natural Philosophy faculties have each been allowed a separate existence; and the fact that elsewhere they still remain together is simply the result of the common propaedeutic character which was deemed to constitute their reason for being. The practical needs of life to broaden the knowledge of nature have for more than a century caused the independent character of the natural sciences convincingly to appear, and this very detachment of the study of natural philosophy has quickened the literary studies to a sense of their own independence. The difference of method especially, between the two kinds of sciences, was too pronounced to allow the auxiliary character of literary studies to be maintained. This last process of the emancipation of the literary faculty, however, is still so imperfect, that no common opinion has yet been obtained on the unity of matter, or, if you please, on the real object of this group of sciences. The philological, historical and philosophical studies still seek their organic unity. But in any case it seems an accepted fact, that the cyclus of studies will run its round in the circle of these five faculties. Although there seems. to be a disposition abroad to let the Theological faculty become extinct, or to supersede it by a faculty of Philosophy, no serious desire is perceived to enlarge the number of faculties beyond the five, and it is scarcely conceivable that the practical needs of life will ever warrant the increase of this number. Neither the smaller or larger number of departments, nor the lesser or greater number of professors, but only the combination of studies demanded by a practical education, decides in the end the number and the division of the faculties.

Meanwhile it is by no means asserted that the prosecution of science, and in connection with it the university life, should aim exclusively at a practical education. On the contrary, the pursuit of science for its own sake is the ideal which must never be abandoned. We merely emphasize that the way to this ideal does not lead through sky and clouds, but through practical life. A science which loses itself in speculation and in abstraction never reaches its ideal, but ends in disaster; and the high ideal of science will be the more nearly realized in proportion as the thirst after and the need of this ideal shall express themselves more strongly in human life, so that the practical need of it shall be stimulated by life. As the transition from unconscious into conscious life advances, the impulse born of society increases of itself to account for every element and every relation, and, thanks to this impulse, the prosecution of science for its own sake carries the day.

In connection with this it is noteworthy that the three originally principal faculties were born of the necessity of warding off evil. This is seen in the strongest light in the case of the medical faculty, which still exhibits this negative character in name, and partly even in practice. It is not called the somatic faculty, to express the fact that the human body is the object of its study; nor the hygienic faculty, to express the fact that health is the object of its choice; but the medical, by which name the diseased body alone is designated as its real object. This accords with the attention which man bestows in real life upon his body. As long as one is well and feels no indisposition, he does not inquire into the location and the action of the organs in his body; and only when one feels pain and becomes ill does the painstaking care for the body begin. Alike observation applies to the juridical faculty. If there were no evil in the world there would be no public authority, and it is only for the sake of evil that the authority is instituted, that the judge pronounces judgment, and that the making of laws is demanded. Not for the sake of the study of law as such, but for the sake of rendering a well-ordered human intercourse possible in the midst of a sinful society, did jurisprudence undertake its work; and the juridical faculty came into being for the education of men who, as statesmen and judges, are leaders of public life. This also applies to the theological faculty, though not in so absolute a sense. Because it was found that salvation for the sinner, and a spiritual safeguard against the fatal effects of wickedness, were indispensable, both law and gospel were demanded. The purpose was medical, but in the Theological faculty it was psychic, as it was somatic in the so-called Medical faculty. For though it must be acknowledged that originally the aim of the Theological faculty was not exclusively soteriological, but that on the contrary it also tried to foster thetically the knowledge of God, yet the call for an educated clergy, and the concomitant prosperity of this faculty, are due in the first place to the fact that men were needed everywhere who would be able to act as physicians against sin and its results. Hence it is actually the struggle against evil in the body, in society, and in the soul which has created the impulse for these three groups of sciences, the need of men to combat this evil, and consequently the necessity for the rise of these three faculties. All three bear originally a militant character. This cannot be said of the Artistie, nor of the faculties of Literature and Natural Philosophy which at a later period were formed from their circle. In the case of these studies positive knowledge was much more the immediate object in view, even though it must be granted that this knowledge was pursued only rarely for its own sake, and much more for the sake of utility. One studied natural philosophy and letters in order to become a jurist, physician, or theologian, or to obtain power over nature. But with this reservation it is evident that from the beginning these provisionally dependent faculties stood nearer to the scientific ideal, and formally occupied a higher point of view.

If it is asked what distinctions control this actual division of scientific labor, it is easily seen that the attention of the thoughtful mind had directed itself in turn to man and to nature that surrounds him; that, as far as his own being is concerned, man has occupied himself severally with his somatic, psychic, and social existence; and that even more than these four groups of sciences, he aimed distinctively at the knowledge of God. The accuracy of this division, which sprang from practical need, is apparent. The principium of division is the subject of science, i.e. Man. This leads to the coordination of man himself with nature, which he rules, and with his God, by whom he feels himself ruled. And this trilogy is crossed by another threefold division, which concerns "man" as such, even the distinction between one man and many, and alongside of this the antithesis between his somatic and psychic existence. Thus the subject was induced in the Theological faculty, to investigate the knowledge of God, and in the faculty of natural philosophy to pursue the knowledge of nature; to investigate the somatic existence of man in the Medical, his psychic existence in the Philological faculty, and finally in the Juridical faculty to embrace all those studies which bear upon human relationships. The boundary between these provinces of science is nowhere absolutely certain, and between each two faculties there is always some more or less disputed ground; but this cannot be otherwise, since the parts of the object of science are organically related, and the reflection of this object in the consciousness of the subject exhibits an equally organic character.

If science had begun with devising a scheme for the division of labor, these disputed frontier-fields of the faculties would have been carefully distributed. Since science, however, and the division of faculties both, are products of the organic process of life, it could not be otherwise than that uncertainty at the boundaries, which is the mark of all organic division, here also shows itself. Should the Medical faculty teach psychology for the sake of psychiatry and of the psychical influences upon the body? Does the philosophy of nature and of law belong to the Philological, or to the Psychical and Juridical faculty? Is the place for Church-law in the Theological faculty or in the Juridical faculty, which itself originated from it as the "Decretorum facultas," and which for many years it claimed in the title of iuris utriusqm doctor f These questions, together with many others, have all been solved in a practical way such as is of course open to critical examination by self-conscious science in its Encyclopedia, but such as a closer investigation claims an ever-increasing respect for the accuracy that marks the decision of practice. The Encyclopedia of the sciences is safest, therefore, when it does not abandon this historic track marked out by practice. A speculative scheme, in which the organic-genetic relations of the sciences are fitted to another last, would have almost no other value than to evoke our admiration for the ingeniousness of the writer. Thus various titles of departments would be obtained, for which there are no departments of study. In our review of the history of Theologic Encyclopedia,¹ it has been seen that, in the study of Theology also, such speculations have not been spared, and numerous departments for new and imaginary branches of study have been formed; but, meanwhile, practice has continued the even tenor of its way, and real study has been best served by this practical division. This would not be so, if the object and the subject of science, and also the development of life and of the consciousness of life, stood in no necessary relation to each other; but since this all-sided relation cannot be denied, and the process of science and the process of life almost always keep equal step, history offers us an important objective guarantee of accuracy. There is a power that directs the course of our lifeprocess, and there is a power that directs the course of the process of science.

ⁱ In the translation this review of the history of Theologic Encyclopedia, occupying in the original 432 pages, has been omitted.

This dominion does not rest in the hand of a single individual, but, for life and science both, is in the hand of a Spirit who stands above all individuals; and since in both realms (in that of life as well as in that of science) this power is exercised by one and the selfsame Spirit, the correct idea of the organism of science comes of itself to light in history, though it be only gradually and not without fits and starts.

§ 53. The Five Faculties

In the preceding section the Theological faculty was numbered with the other four, in order to state the fact that it was born from the practical needs of life, and that it has stood behind none of the others in the manner of formation. Its right of primogeniture among these five can scarcely be disputed. But however important a weight this fact may add to the scale, it does by no means yet define the position which Theology is entitled to hold in the organism of science. The fact may not be overlooked, that at more than one university the faculty of Theology has practically been abolished; that at a number of universities it continues merely as the child of tradition; and that in this traditional prolongation of its life it has undergone, more than any other faculty, so violent a metamorphosis that at length the identity of the object of its study has been entirely lost. Not merely the need, therefore, of judicious criticism, but practice itself places a very grave interrogation mark after this heritage of history, and compels, with respect to Theology, a closer investigation into its certificate of birth and its right of domicile. To do this, however, it is necessary that we first orient ourselves a little with reference to the other parts of the realm, in order to obtain a definite conception of the other four faculties.

Since for our investigation the Philological is the most important, we will consider that first. This faculty has not yet attained its self-consciousness. It would have done this much sooner, if the faculty of Natural Philosophy had been separated from it in Germany as timely as in Holland. Now, however, this unnatural conjunction has in many ways confused insight into the character of Philological study. Even when the studies of Philology and Natural Philosophy are separated, every difficulty is by no means yet surmounted, for then the antithesis is at once encountered between the studies of Philosophy and Philology in the narrower sense. It has more than once been proposed to allow Philosophy a faculty of its own and to give it the house in which Theology lies dying. The Philological faculty would then become exclusively the faculty of letters, and in an eminent sense engage itself with all those studies which the littera scripta gives rise to or renders possible. And from this point of view a third antithesis appears: viz. the antithesis between Historical studies and those of Philology proper. If indeed the criterium for the object of Philology lies in the littera scripta, then it both can and must investigate the historical documents and the historical expositions, as literary products, but the real content of History lies outside of its horizon. In this wise the faculty is more and more reduced, and at length its only remaining object is that which is written, which condemns it as an independent faculty. However highly one may estimate its value, letters can never form a principal group in the organism of the object; and to a certain extent it is even contingent. The object existed long centuries before literary life manifested itself. Hence the name Literary faculty can in no case be taken as a starting-point. We owe this name to Humanism, which in this instance also did not forsake its superficial character. "Philological" is therefore in every way a richer and a more deeply significant name, because the Logos does not refer to the letter, but to that which the letter serves as body. For a long time the restricted meaning of word or of language was attached to the logos in "Philology," and consequently Philology was interpreted as standing outside of Philosophy and History. This, however, only showed how dimly it was understood that every faculty must have a principal group in the object of science as the object of its investigation. If word, and language still more, is a wider conception than that of littera scripta, yet language and word can never acquire the significance of being a principal group in the object of science. As a life-expression of man the life of language is coordinated with the expressions of the ethical, testhetic and material life, and hence for each of these a separate faculty should have to be created. As long as only the expression of life is studied the object of science is not grasped. This is done only when life itself is reached, the expression of which is observed. This, in the case of the logos, is, in its general sense, the life of the human consciousness. It is this life which recapitulates itself in the logos, taken as thought; expresses itself in the logos, taken as word; and which for a very considerable part is at our disposal in the literary product. And thus we have laid our hand upon a principal group in the great object of science; for not only does man belong to this object, but is himself the most important factor in it, and it is in his wonderful consciousness that presently the whole cosmos reflects itself. If now in this sense the object of this faculty is understood to be the conscious life of man, the word conscious must of necessity be taken in its pregnant sense. Else all science could be brought under this faculty, even that of nature. But this danger is evaded if, on the other hand, full emphasis is placed upon the quality of conscious life, so that in this faculty our life is in question only from the side of our consciousness. By doing this we keep in the path first indicated by Boeck and extended so much farther by my esteemed colleague, Dr. J. Woltjer, in his Rectoral oration of 1891.¹ If Boeck placed thinking too much in the foreground, Dr. Woltjer rightly perceived that from thinking we must go back to the Logos as reason in man; and it is therefore entirely in keeping with the relation established by him, that in Philology we interpret the word Logos as indicating that which is conscious in our life.

And thus the view-point is gained, from which the practice is justified, which has ever united philosophical and historical studies with that of Letters.

ⁱ The Science of the Logos, by Dr. J. Woltjer, 1891.

Even if language and everything that is connected with language is the vehicle of human consciousness, the study of this vehicle does hy no means end the study of that consciousness itself. That human consciousness also as such, according to its form and comprehensive content, must be made the object of investigation, and this necessitates the formal and material study of philosophy. Above all it should be taken into consideration that it is not the consciousness of a single individual, but the consciousness of man as such, and hence of humanity in its relation and continuous process, that is to be known; and this gives rise to the task of History. Hence it is the one Logos, taken as the consciousness of humanity, which provides the motive for Linguistic and Historic and Philosophic studies; so that no reasonable objection can be raised against the name of Philological faculty. "Logoi" was indeed the word used originally for an historical narrative, and this gave historians the name of Logographers. In this way the combination of Linguistic, Historic, and Philosophic studies does not lead to an aggregate, but to an organic unity, which in an excellent manner locates a principal group of the object of science in a realm of its own. It is man in antithesis with nature, and in man his logical, in antithesis with his bodily manifestation, which determine the boundaries of this realm. The. unity that lies in this may not be abandoned.

Meanwhile let it be observed, that the task of this faculty should not be extensively, but intensively interpreted. The object of its existence is not the study of every conceivable language, nor the investigation of all history, nor yet the systematizing of the whole content of the human consciousness. The Faculty, as such, must direct its attention to the consciousness of humanity taken as an organic unity, and thus must concentrate its power upon that in which the process of this human consciousness exhibits itself. It does not cast its plummet into a stagnant pool, but away out in the stream of human life. Its attention is not riveted by what vegetates in isolation, but by that which lives and associates with and operates within the life of humanity. For this reason the classical and richly developed languages from the old world and the new are so vastly more important to this Faculty, as such, than the defective languages of the more supine and undeveloped nations. It does not look upon Literature as an aggregate of everything that has been handed down in writing, but as an organic conception, which only embraces that which is excellent in form and content. History also is only that in which the human consciousness has developed strength to bring the human life to the fuller unfolding of its idea. And as material Philosophy, it merely offers that which has advanced the current of human thought, and has enabled its different tendencies to express themselves correctly. The proposal to overwhelm this Faculty with the study of all conceivable languages and peoples and conceptions must therefore be declined. This deals the death-blow to this Faculty, makes it top-heavy, and causes it to lose all unity in its self-consciousness. In order to maintain itself as a faculty it must distinguish between main interests and sideissues, and maintain unity in multiformity, and keep its attention fixed upon that which in continuous process has ever more richly unfolded the consciousness of our human race, has enabled it to fuller action, and has brought it to clearer consciousness. We do not deny that other languages also, peoples and conceptions may be the object of scientific research, but this sort of study must annex itself to the work of this faculty, and not consume its strength. This self-limitation is not only necessary in order that it may handle its own material, but also that it may not lose its hold on life, and thus may keep itself from conflict with practical demands. Duty, therefore, demands that in the. study of the human consciousness it should not swing away to the periphery, but that it shall take its station at the centrum, and never lose from sight the fact that the object of its investigation is the conscious life of our human race taken as an organic unity. With this in view it investigates language as the wondrous instrument given as vehicle to our consciousness; the richest development which language has proved capable of in the Classical languages of ancient and modern times; and the full-grown and ripe fruit which language has produced in classical Literature. Next to this study of language as vehicle and incorporation of our consciousness, follows the investigation into the activities of this consciousness in the life of humanity, i.e. the broad study of History. And then, at length, formal and material Philosophy follow; the first to investigate conscious life in its nature, and the laws which govern it; the second to answer the question, how the "World-Image" (Weltbild) has gradually formed itself in this consciousness, and in what form it exhibits itself at present. This order of succession certainly gives rise to the objection, that formal philosophy should properly lead the van; nevertheless, we deem it necessary to maintain it, because formal as well as material philosophy assumes a preceding development of language, and hence also a preceding history.

The Medical faculty being of less importance for our investigation may therefore be more briefly considered. We for our part do not desire the name of Medical faculty to be changed into Somatological or Philosomatical faculty. We would not have the fact lost from sight that this science did not originate from the thirst after a knowledge of our body, but from the need of seeking healing for its diseases. For this implies the confession that our general human condition is neither sound nor normal, but is in conflict with a destructive force, against which help from a saving power must be sought and can be found. This, however, does not weaken the demand that the medical character of these studies should not too absolutely be maintained. Obstetrics in itself is no real medical study. Moreover, medical study has always assumed the knowledge of the healthy body. And Hygiene, which demands an ever broader place, is not merely medicalprophylactic, but in part stands in line with the doctrine of diet, dress, etc., as tending to the maintenance of the healthy body. On these grounds it seems undeniable, that the object of investigation for this faculty is the human body, or better still, man from his somatic side. Alread}for this reason the effort to take up the body of animals into this faculty should be protested against; and warnings should be sounded against entertaining too sanguine expectations from vivisection, and against the altogether too bold exploits which it adventures. In itself, veterinary surgery would never have become anything more than an empiric knowledge; and the insight it derives from the Medical faculty is a mercy which from our human life descends to suffering animals. But Darwinism should never tempt us in this faculty to coordinate man and animal under the conception of "living things." If the human body had not been subject to disease, there would never have been a medical science. Vegetation also has its diseases and invites medical treatment; but who will include the healing of plants in the Medical faculty? The human body must remain the exclusive object for the complex of medical studies. The proplastic forms also, or preformations which were created for this body in the vegetable and animal kingdom, must indeed be investigated with a view to this body, but the studies which this investigation provokes serve exclusively as subsidiary helps, and should not be permitted to destroy the boundary between the human body and these preformations. In the same way the boundary should be guarded which divides the somatic life of man from his psychical life. This psychical life is the heritage of the Philological and not of the Medical faculty. If this boundary be crossed, the Medical faculty must subordinate the psychical phenomena to the somatic life, and cannot rest until, under the pressure of its own object, it has interpreted this psychical life materialistically. But neither should it be forgotten that an uncertain and mingled region lies between the somatic and the psychic life. Both sides of human life stand in organic relation. The body affects the soul, and the soul the body. Hence, there is on one side a physico-psychical study which must trace the psychical phenomena on physical ground, and on the other side a psychico-physical study which determines the influence exercised by the soul upon the body. And this must serve as a rule, that Psychology derives its physical data from the Medical faculty; while on the other hand the Medical derives its psychological data from the Philological faculty. That the Theological faculty also comes into consideration here is not denied; but since it is the very purpose of this investigation to point out the place in the organism of science which belongs to the Theological faculty, we pass it by for the present. Only let the necessary observation be made, that it is contradictory to the peculiar character of the medical studies to leave the important decision concerning the imputability of guilt in the process of punishment to be accounted for by this faculty. Finally a last boundary must be drawn for the medical faculty on the side of the juridical faculty. For on that side also medical science steps constantly beyond the lines of its propriety. It demands, indeed, that public authority shall unconditionally adopt the results from medical and hygienic domains into civil ordinances, and shall execute what it prescribes. This absolute demand should be declined, first, because these results lack an absolute, and sometimes even a constant character; and in the second place, because it is not the task of medical, but of juridical science to investigate in how far the claims of the body should be conditioned by the higher claims of the psychic and social life.

Within these boundaries these medical studies naturally divide themselves, according to their object, into studies which investigate the healthy body; which trace the phenomena of disease; and which have for their purpose the cure of these abnormal phenomena. The study of the body as such, i.e. in its healthy state, divides itself equally naturally into the somatical and psychico-somatical, while the somatic studies divide again into anatomy and physiology. The sciences which have for their object the deviations from the normal, i.e. the sick body, are pathology and psychopathology. The studies, finally, which direct themselves to Therapeutics, divide into medical, surgical, and psychiatrical, to which Medicine and applied Medica join themselves. Only the place of Obstetrics is not easily pointed out, because a normal delivery, without pain, would not be a pathological phenomenon, and to this extent Obstetrics would not find its motive in the medical, but in the somatical character of these studies. As such it should belong as a technical department to Physiology. From the view-point of Revelation, however, delivery with pain is an abnormal phenomenon, and to this extent we see no difficulty in coordinating obstetrics after the old style with medical and surgical science. With the exception of these incidental questions it is readily seen, meanwhile, that as long as the Medical science confines itself to these independent studies, it still lacks its higher unity, and cannot be credited with having come to a clear self-consciousness. This would only be possible if it could grasp the deeper cause of the corruption from which all diseases originate; if, on the other hand, it could expose the relation between this cause and the reagents; and thus could crown its labor by the production of a Medical Philosophy.

The Juridical faculty claims a somewhat larger share of our attention, since it stands in a closer relation to that of Theology. In the object of science we found its province in man, — not in himself, but as taken in his relation to other men. This, however, must not be interpreted in the sense that man is merely a social being, and that therefore juridical study must lapse into sociology. The origin of this faculty is a protest against this. From the beginning it was a faculty for the study of Sancta Justitia, devoted to the education of those who were to administer the affairs of government and exercise the judicial function. Both these conceptions, of government and judicial power, were derived from the fundamental conception of the Supreme Authority. The folly of separating the powers of state had not yet been invented, and the intrinsic unity of all legislative, judicial, and governing power stood still firm in the common mind. Authority was exercised over men upon earth; this authority was not original with man, but was conferred of God upon the magistracy. Hence the way in which this authority was to be exercised by the magistracy was not left to the arbitrariness of despotism, but this authority fulfilled its end only when it operated in harmony with the order of human society ordained of God. The laws and regulations to which this authority bound its subjects and itself were obliged, therefore, to meet a fixed claim; and this claim had been established by God himself in the ordinances of his Creation, and had received its fuller interpretation in his special Revelation. Hence, though whatever the magistracy ordained as law was actually valid, as such, within the circle of their authority, and though as such it bound the conscience formally, the obligation that this enforced law should legitimate itself as law before a higher tribunal, and in other ways be corrected, could not be ignored. From this obligation the study of law in the higher sense is born; for profound and scientific study alone can obtain an insight into the nature of law in general, and into the special relations of law, as they should be in order to correspond to the relations which have been divinely ordained in creation and by history mutually between man and man or among groups of men.

The view, which formed the point of departure in this, was accurate in every way, viz., that there would have been no need of a magistracy, nor of the regulation of law, nor of a consequent study of law, if there had been no moral evil among men. In a sinless state, the correspondence of the social life to the demands of the holiest law would be spontaneous. Hence, when this faculty originated, it was still the common confession that sin alone was the cause that one man was clothed with compulsory authority over the other. In a sinless society every occasion for the appearance of such a compulsory authority would fall away, because every one would feel himself immediately and in all things bound by the authority of God. And so it has come to pass that the Juridical faculty, as well as the Medical and the Theological, has disclosed the tendency to oppose an existing evil. If the Theological faculty tended to militate against evil in the heart of man, and the Medical to overcome evil in the human body, in like manner the Juridical faculty has tended to resist evil in the realm of Justice. In connection with this, the Juridical faculty bore a consecrated character. It did not study human relations in its own self-sufficiency, but realized its calling to lead the authority imposed of God upon men into the path of Right ordained by Him. Meanwhile this almost sacred origin of the Juridical faculty does not prevent science from introducing the logical purpose of all science more prominently into the foreground of the Juridical domain, and from giving an account of the place which these studies also occupy in the organic unit of science. Viewed in this way, a proper, well-defined place in the object of general science should also be allotted to this study; and in this sense there is no objection against seeking this proper domain of the juridical science, this provincia juris, in the social relations of man. The great development of the sociological and economical auxiliary departments shows, that the study of law actually moves in this direction, while no one seriously thinks of separating all sociological and economical studies from this faculty and of classing them with the Philological faculty, or, as far as the material object of economical studies is concerned, with the natural philosophical.

It would be a serious matter, however, if for this reason the original juridical character of this faculty should be abandoned, and if gradually and by preference it should be allowed to merge into a sociological faculty. If there is apportioned to this faculty the study of all that originates the social life of man, makes it real, and belongs to its nature in its broad extent, then ethics would gradually claim a lodging with it, the life of science and art would come under its care, pedagogy would have to recognize its authority, and the technique also of agriculture, commerce, and of trade would partly come under its rule. It is necessary, therefore, to limit the object of this faculty by a more accurate definition, and that closer definition can be no other than that this faculty is concerned with human society only in so far as this calls out the Jural Relationships. Thus authority will ever be the characteristic of this faculty, since authority alone is able to verify these Jural Relationships as Law, to maintain them where they are normal, to modify them where they are abnormal, and, where they are still undeveloped, gradually to cause them to emerge. This is as valid for the Jural Relationships between the magistracy and their subjects as for the Jural Relationships of these subjects mutually, and of the nations at large. The sociological and economical studies in this faculty are not charged with tracing abstractly the organic relation among people at every point, nor yet with viewing from every side the relation between our human social life and property; but it is their exclusive task to obtain such an insight into this twofold and very important relation as shall interpret the Jural Relationships it implies, and shall discover to the magistracy what in this domain it must and must not do.

In fact, the study of the Juridical faculty will always be governed by the principles professed with reference to authority. If authority is considered to have its rise from the State, and the State is looked on as the highest natural form of life in the organism of humanity, the tendency cannot fail to spring up to deepen the significance of the State continuously, and even to extend the lines of authoritative interference, which Plato pushed so far that even pedagogy and morals were almost entirely included in the sphere of the State. Indeed, more than one sociologist in the Juridical faculty is bent upon having his light shine more and more across the entire psychical life of man, in the religious, ethical, resthetical, and hygienic sense. If sooner or later the chairs of this faculty are arranged and filled by a social-democratic government, this tendency will undoubtedly be developed. If, on the other hand, it is conceded that authority over man can rest nowhere originally but in God, and is only imposed by Him upon men with regard to a particular sphere, this impulse to continuous extension is curbed at once, and everything that does not belong to this particular sphere falls outside of the Juridical faculty. In the moral life, which is not included here, God himself is the immediate judge, who pronounces sentence in the conscience and various temporal judgments in the world, and who will utter final judgment in the last day; while public authority must appoint law only upon the earth, and must pronounce sentence as judge upon that alone which can be legally established and maintained in the external relations of life by compulsion. Hence ethics, as touching the relation of man in foro interno, will remain in the Theological and Philological faculty; pedagogy, as bearing upon the psychic life, belongs in the Philological faculty; hygiene remains with the Medical; the material side of property finds its study in the faculty of Natural Philosophy; while all that touches the real technics is treated by the Artes and not by the Scientiae. Thus the Juridical faculty stands in organic relation to all the others; it cannot forego the assistance of any; it must borrow data (Lehnsatze) from all; but it does not lose itself in these studies, while the object of its own science is the social life of man, not as abandoned to whim or accident, but as governed by an authority, and thus bound to a law, which is indeed framed by man, but which finds its deepest ground and hence its binding rule in Him who created this human social life, and who, in the interests of its outward relations, on account of sin, conferred authority upon man over man.

The science of Law, therefore, is not only to shed light upon the relation of the magistrate and the subject (public law and penal law), upon the relation of citizen to citizen (civil law, commercial law, etc.), and upon the relation of nation to nation (international law); but, before all this, it must develop the idea of Justice itself, so that it can be well understood at what view-point it takes its stand, and according to what rule the development of law must be guided. To accomplish this, it cannot rest content with the investigation of existing Jural institutions, their comparison with others, and a study of their historical origin. All this can never effect more than the knowledge of formal law; while Justice exhibits itself in its majesty only when it obtains its adamantine point of support in our psychical existence, and of necessity flows from what, to our deepest sense of life, is highest and holiest. The question whether one worships tikis highest and holiest in the living God, or whether it is sought in the pantheistic idea, or in the pressure of natural life, determines, really, the entire course of our further studies. But in any case the science of law must fix its point of departure, formulate its idea of justice, and make clear the vital principle of law. To do this it must borrow its data from Theology, Psychology, and Philosophy in the general sense, but by a proper Philosophy of law it must work out these borrowed data independently with a view to Justice, and unite them organically into one whole, in which the self-consciousness of Law expresses itself. The Encyclopedia of the science of law does not preclude the necessity of a separate study of the philosophy of law. For the object of Encyclopedia is not law itself, but the science of law, and though it is self-evident that there can be no exposition of the science of Law as an urganic whole without due consideration of the questions what law is, what law is born from, and how we can learn to understand law, yet the answer of these does not rest with the Encyclopedia, but is accepted in the Encyclopedia as already determined; and this is only possible when in the organism of the Science of law the Encyclopedia also finds the Philosophy of law, with its results.

By this we do not detract in the least from the significance of the historical study of law. That historical study includes by no means merely the explanation of existing Jural institutions in their origin, but at the same time points out the forms which the character of our human nature, in connection with national and climatic differences, have given to law, and according to what process these forms have developed themselves one from the other. It also appears from these historical studies, that the development of law has been more normal in one direction, and that in definite circles the development of law has exhibited a classical superiority. What we contend is, that no criticism or even a mere judgment is possible, unless a critic is present subjectively in the investigator, and the authority which gives law its sanction determined in advance. Even where this criticism is rejected from principle, and in a pantheistic sense the distinction between right and wrong is actually abolished, in order to recognize law only in that which is in force as such as long as it maintains itself, there is a premise already in this, and back of this premise an entire system, that dominates our entire science of law. Even where one eliminates the Philosophy of law, the start is made insensibly, i.e. without a clear self-consciousness, from a point which the Philosophy of law alone can scientifically justify; and for this reason the omission of this study is at heart an insincerity.

Concerning the grouping of the several departments of study in this faculty, no one will longer defend the method of Kirchner of placing the fountain-studies, such as hermeneutics, criticism, and diplomatics in the foreground as the exegetical group. These are simply not juridical departments, but philological, and are here specially applied to documents of juridical contents. In this faculty also the grouping should derive its principle of division (principium divisionis) from its object, and hence this principium can only lie in the several elements, among which the Jural relationships are observed, i.e. government and subject, people and people, citizen and citizen. The fourth relation, God and Sovereignty, we purposely omit, because law also runs its course where this relation is not recognized or is even denied, and where the prerogative of Sovereignty is explained in other ways. From this, however, it follows that the three lines of relations which we have named form only the particular part in the juridical science, and that these three studies, which together form the particular part, must be preceded by a general part on Law as such. This general part should embrace the two departments: (1) The philosophy of Law; and (2) the history of Law; to which, for reasons fully developed above, Encyclopedia can be added (although, even as with the other faculties really a philosophical study), in an irregular way. Of course it is not denied that the three portions of the particular part have each a history of their own, but we are so fully convinced of the common fundamental trait which dominated these parts in every period and with every people, that Roman law, Germanic law, etc., are generally spoken of in an universal sense. Upon this general part follows the particular part, which falls into three: Public law, International law, Civil law, each with their auxiliary sciences. Public law divides itself again into public law in the narrower sense and Penal law, and to penal law the theory of procedure is added as a subdivision. Those which, on the other hand, are taken separately as political sciences, i.e. statistics, economics, politics, diplomatics, sociology, etc., are only auxiliary sciences which keep pubhc law especially, but civil law also in part, from feeling their way at random, and help them to walk in the broad light of the knowledge of facts, conditions, and relations. The difference is that in olden times the unconscious life was stronger, and hence also the sense of law, since custom of itself determined all sorts of relations which now in our more conscious life are only obtained as the result of investigation. Of course material goods are here considered only in so far as they are subsumed under man, and thereby are brought under the conception of law, or at least can exercise an influence upon the decision of the relations of law. The relation between gold and silver, for instance, would of itself be entirely indifferent to the jurist, but it becomes of importance to him as soon as the question arises, in what way the government in its monetary system is to decide the relation between them. We cannot enter into further detail. To analyze more closely the several characteristics of civil law, commercial law, maritime law, etc., lies not in our province, and the fact that legal procedure, political science, etc., bear less a scientific than a technical character is self-evident. Our only purpose has been to explain that side of the science of law on which it lies organically linked in the organism of general science, and to indicate the partly sacred character which the Juridical science must maintain, for Justitia must remain sancta or cease to be Justitia, and for this reason it stands in immediate relation to the two great problems, of how authority from God comes to man, and whether or no it has been conferred upon man simply because of sin.

The faculty of Natural Philosophy can be considered more briefly. There is only one difference of opinion about the object of physical science. This arises from the fact that the mathematical and arithmetical sciences were formerly classed with Philosophy, while at present the tendency is stronger to class them with the physical sciences as the sciences of the relations of physical data. Those who hold these relations to be unreal, or at least explain them in the main as subjective, are obliged, for the sake of logical consequence, to prefer the custom of the old philosophy, and group these departments with the psychical studies. Since, however, the impression has become more universal that science in general and therefore each particular science, must seek its strength in the knowledge of the relations even more than in the knowledge of the elements among which these relations exist, it is not probable that with reference to the disposition of Mathematics and Arithmetic the subjective tendency will again gain the day. It is entirely true that our human consciousness is adjusted to measure and to number; else the most industrious effort would never bring us the conception of geometry or arithmetic. It is also entirely true that the laws which dominate the combination of measures and numbers, or, if you please, the Logica of measure and number, must find a point of connection in our human consciousness; else we should never be able to propound or solve an abstract problem in mathematics or arithmetic. This, however, does not take away the fact that it is the cosmos outside of us that first brings measure and number to our consciousness. On this ground there seems to be no objection to classing Mathematics, Algebra, and Arithmetic as three formal departments under the physical sciences. For the material departments, however, the principium of division here too lies in the object of physical science. This object ascends from the elements of nature to the cosmos, and in this ascent it follows the scale of the so-called natural kingdoms of our earth, and of that which has been observed in the cosmos physically outside of our earth. Hence those departments come first, which investigate the elements (matter as well as force), and which are to be embraced under Physics and Chemistry. Then come the sciences which investigate certain groups of elements in their organic relations, i.e. Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology. After that come the studies which direct themselves to our earth as such, viz., Geology, Geography in its broadest extent, and Meteorology. And lastly follows Astronomy; and finally Cosmology, as embracing the whole.

Let no one imagine, however, that all these sciences as such belong to the so-called exact sciences. No one will be able to assert this of Cosmogony, and the evolution-theory of Darwin sufficiently shows that natural philosophy cannot afford to limit itself to the simple results of weight, number, and measure. The simple observation of what one hears, sees, tastes, and handles, even with the aid of instrumental reinforcement of our senses, and under proper verification, is never anything more than the primitive point of departure of all science and stands formally in line with common perception. Only by the discovery of the laws which exercise general rule in that which is particular does this science raise itself to its second stadium, and become able to exercise authority over matter. But though in this way it materially aids in establishing the dominion which was given man over all created things, and though physical science has contributed the valuable result that it has exalted the independent human consciousness and has set us free to so large an extent from the dominion of matter, it has by no means yet satisfied the highest scientific need. As long as it knows nothing beyond the several data and the law by which these data are governed, the thinking mind cannot rest. It searches also after the relations among the several kingdoms of nature, between our earth and the other parts of the cosmos, between all of nature outside of us and man, and finally after the origin of nature and of the tie which binds us to it, even in our body. These are the points of connection between the faculty of Natural Philosophy and the other faculties; and the fact that physical science inclines more and more to announce itself as the only true science, in order to coordinate man with the objects of zoology, and to explain the psychical life materialistically, shows how ill-advised it is to allow this physical science to make only practical advances, without attaining encyclopedically to self-consciousness and giving itself an account of the place which it occupies in the great organism of science. A scientific Encyclopedia, worthy of the name, is the very thing it altogether lacks; and only when it makes serious work of this can the question be answered, whether as a culminating department Philosophy of nature belongs to this faculty.

If now the outline of the four named faculties has been drawn fairly correctly, the question arises whether the Theological faculty joins itself to them in organic connection, with a proper object, and in good coordination. To make this clear it will not do to begin by making the conception of Theology fluid. All judgment concerning the Juridical faculty is rendered impossible so soon as you interpret it now as the facultas juris, or legal faculty, and again as the facultas societatis, or sociological faculty. Much less will a way of escape be discovered from the labyrinth on theological ground, if by Theology you understand, now, that which was originally understood by it, and again supersede this verified conception by an entirely different one, such as, for instance, the Science of Religion. The study of the nature of Theology is in order in the following division, so that in this chapter we can do no other than state the conception which we start out from, and after that review the Theological faculty, and in historical connection with this determine the place of Theology in the organism of science. Because of the importance of the subject we do this in a separate chapter.